


what's your name, number six?

by thepensword



Series: queer siblings club (luthers not invited) [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: (very glad to see i'm not the first to use that tag), BABY hargreeves. little tiny baby ben and klaus, Fluff, Gen, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Love, Trans Ben Hargreeves, hey the good thing about having a number before you get a name. no deadname, nonbinary Klaus but he doesn't know it yet but. he is, the other little baby hargreeves are there but not enough to get character tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:02:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25981783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepensword/pseuds/thepensword
Summary: “Can you be a boy even if you don’t look like the boys on TV?” asks Ben.“Probably,” says Klaus, tone thoughtful. “I mean, some of the boys on TV look different, right? Some of them have wings or turn into animals and—and sometimes, sometimes they’re even dragons. Like, like, Batman’s a boy but he doesn’t look like a boy. He looks like a bat.”(Or: Number Six and the day he picked his name)
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves
Series: queer siblings club (luthers not invited) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1882855
Comments: 31
Kudos: 361





	what's your name, number six?

**Author's Note:**

> no promises about the writing quality of this one i have had a bad headache All Day

They are six years old when Mom gathers them all around on the floor of the little sitting room and gives them names. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven they sit, little legs folded beneath them on the floor. They are all watching with rapt attention, because Mom is beautiful and her voice is beautiful and even though she’s brand new (and a robot!) they already know she’s the best caregiver they’ve ever had. Mom doesn’t yell or get angry or frustrated. She doesn’t give up and leave them behind. She doesn’t break. Mom smiles and holds their little hands and kisses their little scraped knees and cooks them pancakes in the morning and sometimes, on especially good days, she shapes the pancakes like little dinosaurs. 

Today is one of those days. Six had gotten stegosaurus pancakes, with strawberries chopped exactly how he likes them and with just the right amount of whipped cream. His stomach is full (he can feel the little bulge when he pats on it, even!) and the monsters are making happy little stegosaurus noises in his head, which is better than their normal howling screams. Of course, Six doesn’t know what a stegosaurus actually _sounds_ like, but his imagination is fully able to fill in the gaps.

Today is a good day. Six should feel all bubbly with happy things, like when you blow into your straw and make it so the chocolate milk bubbles up high in the glass like a volcano. Mom is giving them names today! Real names, like the other children in the storybooks. Proper names like every other little child. 

But Six is nervous. 

“One, we’ll start with you,” says Mom. She taps her slender fingers against her chin and hums thoughtfully through smiling lips. “Hm, let’s see. Thomas? Leopold? Oh! I know!” She pats One on the head and he practically glows at the contact, beaming up at her, all blue eyes and blond hair and gangly limbs too big for his body. “How about Luther?”

And so it goes. Luther, Diego, Allison. Four is sitting by his side, super-duper close, little fingers in Six’s hair and pretending he knows how to do a braid. His hands freeze when Mom turns to him and he sits up excitedly, pulling his hands back into his lap where they belong and accidentally yanking painfully on Six’s skull when his fingers snag in all the knots he’s made. Four’s name, moments later, is Klaus. 

“Hi-my-name-is-Klaus!” Klaus whispers very very fast in Six’s ear, way way way too loudly (as is his fashion). 

“Hi, Klaus,” says Six. He’s happy for Four—Klaus. He’s happy for Klaus, he is, but when he tries to smile back it ends up wobbling. He feels sick to his stomach and the monsters are starting to sound less like happy little stegosauruses and more like very angry eldritch t-rexes. Maybe he shouldn’t have eaten so many pancakes.

“You’re next!” beams Klaus, ignorant to Six’s turmoil. He’s literally bouncing in his seat, up and down and up and down, fingers tapping on the floor. Six has to look away. He’s getting motion sickness.

Five's name takes a while. He’s stubborn—which they’ve always known—but Six doesn’t really understand why he has to be so stubborn about stupid things, like _“you can’t ask for pterodactyl dinosaur pancakes because pterodactyls aren’t actually dinosaurs, duh”_ and _“the doors in Monsters’ Inc are stupid because portals don’t stay in one spot for that long, you idiot”_ (Five had learned “idiot” from a recording of a bank robbery last year and it had since become his favorite word) and, apparently, “Why would I want a name like a normal kid? I’m _not_ a normal kid. I’m _better_. Normal kids don't have _superpowers. "_ He jumps to the other side of the room and then back again, just to prove his point

Mom’s smile doesn’t falter, but neither does Five’s scowl. In the end, Mom just says, “We’ll see how you feel later, sweetie,” and turns her gaze to Six.

Six fidgets, pulling at the bottom edge of his skirt where it’s folded over his knees and twisting the fabric around his fingers. Klaus seems to have picked up some of his nervous energy and is now trying to antagonize Five by making funny faces at him. Usually, this would make Six giggle. But not today. The monsters are dancing around in his stomach and he starts planning out the fastest route to the nearest trash can, just in case.

“Number Six!” says Mom. She cocks her head to the side and furrows her brows, still smiling. “Are you alright, dear?”

Six nods mutely and decides looking at her earrings and her pretty dress is much easier than looking in her eyes. Mom doesn’t _get_ mad, he knows that, but what if she _did?_

“Alright,” says Mom. “Time for your name, then. Let’s see...Margaret? Mm, no. Maybe...Abigail? Laura? What do you think?”

 _Margaret_ , Six thinks, horrified. What does he think? He thinks...he hates Margaret. He hates Abigail. And he _hates_ Laura. He must be making some sort of face, because Mom chuckles and shakes her head fondly. “Alright, then,” she says, “none of those! How about...Sara? Judy? Melissa?”

With each name, the monsters growl a little bit louder and Six feels a little bit more like throwing up. “Ben!” he blurts out, before he can stop himself.

The room goes very quiet. All of his siblings turn to look at him. Even Klaus stops his fidgeting.

“Ben?” repeats Allison.

Five leans forward, frowning. He’s still upset from arguing with Mom and from Klaus trying to annoy him. “But that’s a boy’s name,” he says, stubborn and contrary. Matter-of-fact. Six flinches.

“Ben,” he says again, quieter this time, because if he tries to say anything else he might start crying. Or throw up. Both of which would be bad. He balls his little hands into fists on his knees, holding onto the fabric of his skirt as if for dear life. Klaus scoots on his butt across the floor until he’s right next to him again and grabs onto his arm like he wants to help but doesn’t understand how.

Mom is watching him, head cocked to the side. “Number Six,” she says, voice still gentle and sweet, just like always. “Would you be happier with a boy’s name?”

Six can’t look at her (or anyone else) so he looks down at his knees and closes his eyes as tight as they get so no tears will slip out and then he nods, the motion jerky and hesitant. Yes, he thinks. Yes, he wants a boy’s name. Yes, yes, yes. Maybe Five doesn’t want to be a normal little boy but Six _does_. 

“Okay,” says Mom. “Ben it is, then!”

Six is so startled that he looks up at her without any regard for the tears that start sliding in hot, wet lines down his cheeks as soon as his eyelids aren’t there to hold them back. Mom doesn’t look angry at all. Instead, she sits forward and wipes his cheeks with her handkerchief. Then she pats her lap. Slowly, Six climbs up to sit there, and she starts gently untangling the mess that Klaus has made of his hair. 

“Ben is a fine name,” says Mom. “I think it suits you very well. Ben, would you like me to cut your hair later? Short, like your brothers’?”

Six—no, Ben. His name is Ben now. (His name is Ben now! He has a name, a real name, a little boy’s name! Ben-Ben-Ben-Ben-Ben-Ben-Ben!) Ben nods his head empathically. Yes, yes, yes. He wants his hair short like Klaus’ and Luthor’s and Diego’s and Five’s. Klaus is frowning at the idea that he’s going to lose a head of long hair to make ~~knots~~ braids in but smiles at Ben when he sees him looking. _Hi-my-name-is-Ben_ , mouths Ben. _Hi Ben!_ Klaus mouths back.

“Well, with that settled,” says Mom, finishing up untangling his hair and giving him a little kiss right on his forehead, “I believe it’s Number Seven’s turn!”

* * *

That night, Ben is not surprised to hear his door click softly open barely ten minutes after curfew and for Klaus to sneak in, expertly avoiding the creaky floorboard and slipping into Ben’s bed as smooth as water. “Hi, Ben,” he whispers, face to face with Ben under the covers.

“Hi, Klaus,” Ben whispers back, and they both giggle quietly. 

“Hey,” says Klaus. “Hey. Hey, Ben. We have names now. Real names like real kids. I’m Klaus! Klaus-Klaus-Klaus-Klaus.”

“I know!” giggles Ben. “Hi-nice-to-meet-you-my-name-is-Ben!”

“Pleasure to make your ac—aqua. Acka. Uh-kwaitness. Pleasure to m…” Klaus sticks his tongue out and blows a raspberry. “Pleasure to meet you, Ben! I’m Klaus.”

“How do you spell Klaus?”

Klaus pauses, flapping his mouth open and closed a few times like a goldfish. “Um. I dunno. I’ll ask Mom, I bet she knows.”

“Mmhmm! She’s really smart,” says Ben. “You could ask Five, too, he’s really good at spelling and he knows a lot of words.”

“Yeah, but Five is mean, though,” Klaus shakes his head. “And you’re a _better_ speller, so if you don’t know then he won’t know. So there.”

Ben shifts, wiggling deeper under the covers in embarrassment. “I’m not a better speller,” he mumbles. “Five’s the smart one.”

“Five _says_ he’s the smart one and he’s better at math but you’re better at spelling,” insists Klaus. “He doesn’t _actually_ know everything, even though he says so.”

Ben has to think about that a little. Five is very smart, he knows. Five understands lots of things that the rest of them don’t, like why a feather and a hammer fall at the same speed on the moon but at different speeds here and like how to do multiplication and division, even though the rest of them are still trying to figure out addition and subtraction. But there’s a lot of things that Five _doesn’t_ know either, like how to play _Twinkle Twinkle_ on the piano, and like—

_But that’s a boy’s name!_

“How do you know you’re a boy?” whispers Ben.

Klaus freezes up for a second and then copies Ben’s wiggling deep beneath the covers until they’re face to face again. His breath is hot and a little bit smelly and Ben wrinkles his nose. “I dunno,” says Klaus. “Dad says I am. I look like they do on TV. But I like wearing skirts and I wish my hair was longer, like the girls, even though Luthor and Diego and Five don’t, so I dunno.”

“Can you be a boy even if you don’t look like the boys on TV?”

“Probably,” says Klaus, tone thoughtful. “I mean, some of the boys on TV look different, right? Some of them have wings or turn into animals and—and sometimes, sometimes they’re even _dragons_. Like, like, Batman’s a boy but he doesn’t look like a boy. He looks like a bat.”

“That’s stupid,” retorts Ben, even though he’s starting to feel a lot better. “Batman doesn’t look like a bat, that’s just his costume.”

It’s impossible to see Klaus’ expression in the darkness beneath the covers but Ben imagines him frowning in confusion. “Oh,” he says. Then, “Why does he do that?”

“Same reason we wear our uniforms even when we’re not at our lessons?” guesses Ben. “Part of the costume.”

“Huh. That’s weird.”

Ben pokes him. “ _You’re_ weird.”

What ensues next is a brief scuffle under the covers. Klaus tries to poke Ben’s belly in retaliation but Ben squirms out of the way and catches the next jab with both hands. Klaus tries to pull his wrist free and, failing that, goes after Ben’s armpit with his other hand, despite the awkward angle. While he’s distracted, Ben gets his belly again, and Klaus lets out an involuntary squeal of laughter that has them both freezing in place, waiting with baited breath to see if anyone heard.

When a few minutes have passed and no one comes to investigate, they both relax, clambering back out from under the covers and up to the top of the bed so they can rest their heads on the pillow. They don’t say anything for a while. It’s late (almost nine o’clock!!!) and they’re both sleepy after today’s excitement. 

“Hey, Ben?” whispers Klaus, right as Ben’s eyelids start to close. With some effort, he pulls them back open again.

“Mm?”

“Are you a boy?”

Oh. That wakes him up. Klaus’ eyes are half-lidded with sleepiness and glint with the reflections of the bits of light that filter through the closed blinds to dapple the room. There’s nothing accusatory in Klaus’ expression, from what Ben can see of it. Just open, genuine curiosity. 

_Is Ben a boy?_

He thinks about that for a moment without saying anything. What even _is_ a boy? He’s not really sure (it all seems terribly confusing and a little bit made-up, honestly), but he knows he wishes he could wear shorts like his brothers do and he can’t wait for Mom to cut his hair short like his brothers’ hair and he knows he’d felt sick at the idea of having a girl’s name. He doesn’t know what a boy is, but he _knows_ he wants to be one, like the little boys on TV. He wants to be someone’s brother. 

“I think so,” he whispers. Enough time has passed that Klaus’ eyes have closed and when he doesn’t open them again at Ben’s reply, Ben starts to worry that maybe he’d gone ahead and fallen asleep and hadn’t heard what he’d said and he’ll have to be brave enough to say it all over again in the morning and what if he doesn’t get the chance and then there still won’t be anyone in the world who understands and—

“Hi-my-name-is-Klaus-Hargreeves,” mumbles Klaus with a sleep-laden tongue, eyes still closed, tripping over the consonants. “And I have two sisters and four brothers.”

Ben smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> *ben voice* how do you know you're a boy? oh i know I'll ask my one nonbinary sibling that should clear it up 
> 
> thanks for reading! you know the drill: kudos if you liked it, comment if you're feeling so kind, or visit me on [tumblr](https://thepensword.tumblr.com).


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